


Drag Me Away (Because my name is Jet and I attack small children)

by Des98



Series: The Adventures of Mini Zuko [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: And like, Based on a Tumblr Post, Crack Treated Seriously, Fun!, Gen, Pao's tea shop collectively wants to beat jet's ass, Short!Zuko, Welllll, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, Zuko is babie, and in this series he's Babie Sized, but its kind of close, gratuitous use of tumblr headcanons, it's not total crack, u can probably play 'spot the other iconic tumblr posts' in here too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:34:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25231708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Des98/pseuds/Des98
Summary: Set during Ba Sing Se, in the Pao's Tea Shop era.  The people of the lower ring think that Zuko is a small child.  They may have sort of mentally adopted him.  This does not go well for Jet.
Relationships: Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Zuko & the people of Ba Sing Se
Series: The Adventures of Mini Zuko [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1826704
Comments: 60
Kudos: 1639





	Drag Me Away (Because my name is Jet and I attack small children)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [noodlebunny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/noodlebunny/gifts), [venomous_syfy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venomous_syfy/gifts).



Zuko was just having a normal day at the tea shop with Uncle, trying to do his job. Okay, well it wasn’t _technically_ his job, since Pao thought that he was literally ten years old and tried to get him to sit in the corner and be plied with tea and cookies during Uncle’s shifts. But Zuko wasn’t great at sitting still, and so he got up and started working anyway. Eventually, Pao gave up on trying to stop him.

“Oh, he wanted something to do. You know how hard it is to keep kids still at that age,” he’d tell any customers who asked why there was (supposedly) a literal child working the register. But word of ‘the adorable, cranky little tea boy with the big burn scars’ got around, and it ended up being good for business. So, Pao didn’t specifically tell him _not_ to work if Zuko happened to find _himself_ something to do around the shop, and Zuko got to keep his tips in return for his presence bringing more people into the tea shop.

Even the Dai Li had started stopping in, out of sheer curiosity. At first, their presence put everyone on edge, but then one day, one of them (Long something, Zuko thought his name was) marched right up to Zuko, ordered the green tea with jasmine pearls and their seasonal sakura mochi, and looked Zuko up and down curiously.

“How’d you get those scars, kid? Was it a firebender?” Long-Something asked, and Zuko knew that this was a test.

“Of course not. Firebenders are just a myth; everyone knows that. Probably spread by the same people who keep saying some nonsense about a war. No, I got this in an accident with a wood stove. It’s why you shouldn’t let children cook, you see.” He gave his best winning smile that looked just the slightest bit predatory if one was able to look past the fact that he was a tiny, seemingly harmless little gremlin.

The Dai Li agent smiled. “Kid,” he declared with a cold, fishy smile that glinted wrongly in his eyes. “You and I are going to get along famously.”

The Dai Li tipped _really_ well. 

So there was a routine: go into work with Uncle, watch and pretend to be disinterested while learning how to prepare tea _properly_ (and take it all to heart anyway, because this was something uniquely ‘Uncle’ and it made him happier than Zuko had seen him in a long time), steadfastly refuse to let old women pinch his cheeks as they cooed over how ‘cute’ he was (he was _not_ cute, he grumbled under his breath. He was _deadly._ This, unfortunately, only made him seem cuter), and play the usual game with Dai Li agents where he pretended not to realize how dangerous they were and they pretended they believed him when he did. 

Then he’d take a break for lunch, read a play scroll or two that Uncle had found in the market for him, and sample treats that Pao would give him under the guise of ‘quality control’ (“You’re too skinny,” Pao said. “I don’t want this to reflect badly on his business and make people think I don’t pay my employees enough to feed their children,” Pao said. “Oma and Shu, your clothes are hanging off you,” Pao said. “You don’t need an excuse to want to take care of my Nephew,” Uncle said. “You’re all insufferable,” Zuko said). He’d taste them all and then slip a couple extras in his pocket to give to Naga when they got back to their apartment.

Against his will and all his better judgment, Zuko was starting to _like_ his new routine, and his new home that he’d made with Uncle. Their apartment was small, to be sure, and they didn’t have a lot of money, but he had Uncle and he had Naga, who made the best bed in the whole world, and there were no pictures of his father smiling coldly down at them in every room, unlike at the palace. And there were cheap outdoor theatre productions in the lower ring, and even if they usually weren’t great, they were all certainly better than the Ember Island Players. And the rooftops in the lower ring were all crowded together and perfect for Blue-Spirit-ing, and there was a lot of activity to keep a young vigilante busy. Some days, Zuko even caught himself smiling without realizing he was doing it, which he quickly remedied by forcing his usual scowl back into place. Smiling made him look even younger than he already did, so he was determined to do it as little as possible.

Seeing stupid _Jet_ walk into their shop certainly kept him from smiling well enough. He _hated_ that guy. At first he’d just thought he was fucking annoying, he kept asking him to joing his ‘freedom fighters’ and even stated that he’d get along with ‘Smellerbee’ since ‘they were around the same age.’ Uncle had to physically restrain Zuko from punching stupid Jet in his stupid face for that one. Stupid Jet just thought that was funny (he thought it was slightly less funny when Naga growled at him, though, and Zuko gave her a pat for being such a good girl), and he stupidly smirked around the stupid stalk of grass in his stupid mouth.

Then they stole some food together, and Zuko thought ‘hey, maybe this guy is slightly less stupid than I thought. Super annoying still, but perhaps there are _some_ redeeming qualities.’

Then Jet saw Uncle heating his tea, and was convinced that they were firebenders. Well, they were, but considering the ‘evidence’ Jet had, that was kind of a stretch on his part. He was clearly a paranoid freak in addition to being the creepy leader of a weird cult full of little children, and Zuko wanted no part of it.

But the guy just. kept. stalking. them. At first, it was just skulking around the lower ring and ‘coincidentally’ being in the same vicinity as him and Uncle, trying to collect more evidence. Then it escalated, to the point where Zuko was pretty sure he’d broken into their apartment while they were at work, because he was pretty particular about the way that his things were placed, and he noticed that the little furniture they had seemed to have been moved around and not put back _quite_ right. He couldn’t think of who _else_ might want to _break into their fucking apartment._

So when Jet came into his actual job screaming about him being a firebender, he was more than ready to throw the fuck down. Every guard and Dai Li agent in the place was ready to take care of it for him, and he even saw a few old ladies standing up and preparing to swing their heavy handbags around like a weapon, but absolutely _nobody_ was going to take this chance away from him. Quick as his sister’s lightning, he grabbed a pair of dual dao off the nearest guard, slipped under and around all the adults who had placed themselves in front of him to try to protect him, and kicked Jet’s ass.

The patrons and guards were on edge, but they didn’t interfere because it was clear that Zuko didn’t need them to, and they knew that any efforts on their part might only distract him and enable the hay-chomping lunatic to get a hit in.

“A child should not have to be able to fight that well,” old ladies tutted to each other as they watched Zuko push Jet back, further and further.

“Just wait until this kid gets to recruiting age,” the Dai Li whispered conspiratorially (as they did most things).

“This actual child is better than any of you louts,” the captain of the guard grumbled to his employees. “What am I even paying you for?”

When Zuko had Jet on the ground, backed against the wall and at the tip of his ~~stolen~~ borrowed swords, it was like a switch had been flipped. The guards jumped into action to restrain him, and the Dai Li threw in a pair of earth cuffs for good measure.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” the head of the guard said, “attacking a child like that.”

“He’s a menace to society!” Jet protested. An old lady whacked him with her purse, and the guards made no move to stop her.

“He’s a little boy; he’ll grow out of it,” she scolded him. “The same cannot be said for you.”

Zuko was not a little boy, but he was too busy smirking at Jet to correct her. Besides, she was a regular who always brought him homemade cashew-pistachio candy, and so he was going to let this one slide.

“Look at him! He’s evil!” Jet attempted to motion wildly towards Zuko, but the cuffs prevented him.

“He’s a half-blind little boy who barely reaches your shoulder,” Pao snarled. He’d be lying to himself if he hadn’t grown fond of the kid and his Uncle-who-made-the-best-tea-in-the-city.

“We’ll take him off your hands for you,” the Dai Li stepped forward towards the guard. “A lunatic who goes around attacking disabled children is clearly too dangerous for the regular prison population.”

The guards didn’t argue like they normally would have; this wasn’t a relatively harmless pickpocket or someone who made the mistake of speaking of the war out loud, and if the Dai Li wanted to take this one for a little vacation under Lake Laogai, they thought that this was perhaps one of the rarer cases where it might even be deserved.

“I’m not disabled!” Zuko yelled loudly, waving his arms around. The milky, slitted eye in the burnt half of his face might try to disagree with him, but _really,_ if anything, he felt he’d just proven himself as super-abled. “I could take anybody in this place!”

“You know, kid, we believe you,” the guard promised. “Why don’t you go ahead and keep the swords. You’ve earned them.”

Zuko couldn’t stop himself from smiling, just a little bit.

[]

Meanwhile, under Lake Laogai, the Dai Li had some experimenting to do. It was easy to brainwash people into believing that there was no war, but changing people’s very natures was still somewhat of a work in progress. They figured that Jet was the perfect case to practice on. If they could train him out of his apparently instinctive urge to violently attack young children, then they would know that they had succeeded.

On a completely unrelated note, next Tuesday is ‘bring your child to work day.’

**Author's Note:**

> Quick note! A couple of people have pointed out that brainwashing is bad and that there’s nothing wrong with being disabled. Obviously they are correct. However, I’m writing in universe, and as such the POV will often be in universe. Zuko believes that being called disabled is an insult because he grew up in a society where anything his father viewed as “weakness” was ruthlessly punished. I obviously don’t agree with negative treatment of disabled people, and I don’t believe that the word “disabled” should be used as an insult. But zuko does, and I’m writing in zukos POV. Same when the guard is like “yeah that jet guy deserves to be brainwashed.” I obviously disagree with what happened to Jet, no matter how much of an ass he was. But I’m writing in universe and exploring character POV’s. So sometimes in my writing you will see POV’s that are not my own opinions, and I’m just putting a disclaimer here that just because I write something doesn’t mean that I personally believe it. I’m just trying to make the world building look more believable. I obviously won’t use real life slurs or any such thing to do so, but some of the content you see written in ANY pre-redemption zuko story might make you feel uncomfortable, because for a long time zuko believed some shitty things, and good writers aren’t going to pretend he didn’t, because that would do a disservice to the people who he hurt pre redemption. I should have been clearer on the fact that I often write from a POV where I’m not expressing my own opinions and beliefs. If, knowing that, something still makes you uncomfortable, please feel free to bring it up with me and I will consider and address it, because of course I, like everyone, still make mistakes and have a lot to do to learn and grow as a person


End file.
